1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a packer for subterranean wells and particularly to a packer for accommodating various sizes of electrical cables in bypass relationship to the packer.
2. Summary of the Prior Art
In many subterranean wells it is desirable to mount an electric submersible pump in the portion of the well casing that is adjacent to a producing formation. Such pump may be conveniently suspended in the well by a packer, but a problem arises in supplying electrical power to the submersible pump by an electrical cable which does not pass through the bore of the tubing string which is connected to the top end of the packer and which is in fluid communication with the discharge end of the pump. Passing the cable through the bore of the tubing string obviously seriously reduces the fluid passage area for production fluid.
Accordingly, packers have been developed in the past wherein the electric cable for supplying energy to a submersible pump has traversed the body of a packer in eccentric relationship to a centrally mounted mandrel which communicates directly with the tubing string and the output of the submersible pump. A packer of this general type has been sold by BAKER PACKERS DIVISION of Houston, Tex. under the tradename of "BAKER MODEL "D" PACKOFF TUBING HANGER WITH CABLE BYPASS".
While this tool is completely functional, it suffers from the disadvantage that it will only efficiently accommodate one size of tubing string bore and one size of electrical cable. If it is desired to utilize a tubing string having a larger bore or larger cable than that for which the aforementioned packoff tubing hanger was designed, then it becomes necessary to redesign and manufacture a substantial number of components of the packoff tubing hanger in order to efficiently accommodate the revised sizes of either the bore of the tubing string or the diameter of the electrical cable.